Day #9: Your strategy is not what you say it is!

Corporate strategy creation is not a one time event that is done where a lot of men in grey suits gather and work on excel sheets and white boards everyday as we might imagine it.Neither is strategy a set of written codes in a book of wisdom telling us what to do and what not to do.It is an evolutionary process.Defined by what you believe in and what you commit to working on everyday.

The same applies to personal strategy creation for your life. You don’t need to lock yourself up in one room for a couple of days and try to come up with a grand vision which would guide your life forever.A strategy is created from everyday actions, choices and commitments. What defines your strategy is not what you say you want to become or who you say you are. What defines your strategy is what you spend your time,money and energy on and what you consistently do.Aristotle said it best, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit.”

In other words, the most important part of strategy is not deciding on an objective and creating plans for achieving this objective, the most important part is where you decide to allocate your resources. This is where the rubber really meets the road.If your life’s strategy is to become a scholar publish books, but you spend a large percentage of your time and money on say video games,or other trivial activities, that’s the real strategy you are implementing.Because what really defines you in the end is where you spend your time, your money and where you put your energy.

Show me how you spend your time, what you do most of the time, how you spend your money and where you invest your energy and I will show you what your strategy for your life really is.You don’t have to believe me.I am not really an expert.Incase you are curios and you want to test this out, take a sheet of paper and write down all the things you really want to achieve in your life, something like a life vision. On the other side of the paper, make a list of the top activities you spend your energy and time on and things you spend your money on. Perhaps you can gain some insights from this. Try through this list to see how they align. If you are spending your time,money and energy on the things that connect to what you really want to achieve, then keep it up.If not, perhaps you might want to have a review on how you allocate your resources.